Executive Director’s Message
Written by Brent Glass in the From the Executive Director category and the Fall 1992 issue Topics in this article: African Americans, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, State Museum of PennsylvaniaWhat will it take to provide leadership in public history in the 1990s? This question shaped a year-long evaluation by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission (PHMC) during which our staff examined our basic assumptions about the agency’s work and charted new directions for the future. This selfstudy, funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), revealed several exciting opportunities to expand upon the strong foundations we have built during the past eighty years and to take advantage of the growing interest in history among new audiences throughout the Commonwealth.
Conducted by PHMC staff with the assistance of several consultants, the self-study concluded that an effective public history program depends on our capacity to engage the public in our work in meaningful ways, and our capacity to develop an interdisciplinary approach to plan and implement our programs.
I heartily support these conclusions because they reflect an operating philosophy that moves our agency forward and closer to the core concerns of government and society in general. All programs need to be evaluated according to this philosophy and resources allocated accordingly. We are now making the assumption that our process is as important as our product or service, that our programs need to be driven as much by the general concerns and values of society as they are by our professional values. Tf we are not mindful of this central conclusion, we risk moving our agency to the margins of state government and society as a whole.
The self-study report calls for a change in thinking, attitude, and orientation, rather than changes in organization. We need to reposition the Commission to address the needs of ordinary people and their history, rather than concentrate on the history of the elite. We need to reinvent the agency and emphasize that collaboration with audiences is as vital as our adherence to professional standards. Finally, we need to repackage the PHMC to develop new approaches to existing programs that take advantage of the operating philosophy called for by the self-study report.
To make the findings of the self-study more concrete, we have focused on two agency-wide programs – industrial history and African American history – and a major exhibition on the Keystone State’s social history planned for The State Museum of Pennsylvania in Harrisburg. These are not new programs, but they will now be shaped by the findings of the self-study – by the need for interdisciplinary work among our staff and closer collaboration with our diverse audiences. Our new approach to these subjects will be reflected in exhibits, tours, conferences, and public programs, as well as by Pennsylvania Heritage and various publications of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission.
Brent D. Glass
Executive Director
